YouTube’s CEO and one of the first Google employees, Susan Wojcicki, is stepping down from her role at the tech giant that started in her garage nearly 25 years ago.
On Thursday, Wojcicki announced the news in a personal update on the video-sharing platform.
Wojcicki, 54, will be replaced by her deputy Neal Mohan, a senior advertising and product executive who joined Google in 2008.
The change of guard comes as YouTube’s advertising revenue fell for the second straight quarter amid intense competition for viewing time with short-form video services such as TikTok and Facebook’s Reels, and streaming services like Netflix.
Mohan, a Stanford graduate, was appointed chief product officer at YouTube in 2015. He focused on building YouTube Shorts, Music and subscription offerings in the role.
He previously spent nearly six years at DoubleClick, a company Google acquired in 2008, and later served for about eight years as senior vice president of display and video advertising at Google.
One of the most prominent women in tech, Wojcicki said she will focus on ‘family, health, and personal projects’, and plans to take on an advisory role at Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
She was previously senior vice president for ad products at Google and became the CEO of YouTube in 2014.
This month, YouTube announced that it would start paying creators for Shorts.
Shorts, if you’re not aware, are YouTube’s answer to TikTok. These short-form, vertical videos are served up at the top of your YouTube feed and styled to be viewed in quick bursts on a mobile phone.
It’s a departure from traditonal, search-driven landscape YouTube that many viewers may visit in order to find specific content.
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